Podcasts about giant foods

This special episode of The CPGGUYS features four guests - the WINNERS of our 2024 Omnichannel awards - 'The OMNIES'. The Omnies recognizes a select few every year that have dedicated a career to evolving from brick & mortar to being truly omnichannel and championing it in the industry. Our four winners this past year have done exactly that. Our sincere CONGRATS to Doug Jossem from Walmart Connect, Tonya Douglas from Giant Foods (part of the ADUSA family), Cely Moreno from PepsiCo and Cara Pratt from Kroger precision marketing/84.51. Find Doug Jossem on Linkedin at : https://www.linkedin.com/in/doug-jossem-2595574/Find Tonya Douglas on Linkedin at : https://www.linkedin.com/in/tonya-douglas-15889bb/Find Cely Moreno on Linkedin at : https://www.linkedin.com/in/cely99/Find Cara Pratt on Linkedin at : https://www.linkedin.com/in/cara-pratt-2429614/Here's what we asked each of them about leadership :1.) You've demonstrated a lifetime of leadership - what principles are you anchored on that have served you well?2.) How did you embrace omnichannel leadership and how do you keep up with learning given all the changes in our industry?3.) What is your advice to others in this space, and how do you advocate working with digital leaders on this very leadership?4.) Tell our audience about brand & retail leadership - what can the industry expect from you in 2025?LA fire relief : https://www.directrelief.org/ (always research before giving)Apply to join the Cornell retail media program https://ecornell.cornell.edu/certificates/marketing/retail-media-strategy/?utm_source=cpg+guys&utm_medium=multi-channel_campaign&utm_campaign=mktgstrat_Retail+Media+Strategy+-+CPG+GuysCPG Guys Website: http://CPGguys.comFMCG Guys Website: http://FMCGguys.comCPG Scoop Website: http://CPGscoop.comRhea Raj's Website: http://rhearaj.comLara Raj in Katseye: https://www.katseye.world/DISCLAIMER: The content in this podcast episode is provided for general informational purposes only. By listening to our episode, you understand that no information contained in this episode should be construed as advice from CPGGUYS, LLC or the individual author, hosts, or guests, nor is it intended to be a substitute for research on any subject matter. Reference to any specific product or entity does not constitute an endorsement or recommendation by CPGGUYS, LLC. The views expressed by guests are their own and their appearance on the program does not imply an endorsement of them or any entity they represent. CPGGUYS LLC expressly disclaims any and all liability or responsibility for any direct, indirect, incidental, special, consequential or other damages arising out of any individual's use of, reference to, or inability to use this podcast or the information we presented in this podcast.

In today's episode we are focusing on understanding the role of grocery chains in community education and food innovation with special guest Leslie Jefferson, the Community Health Manager at Giant Foods. About Leslie Jefferson Ms. Jefferson specializes in nutrition, innovative Food as Medicine programming, and coalition building. With over 20 years of experience, she excels in partnerships across medical systems, nonprofits, and local government. Currently, she is the Community Health Program Manager at Giant Food. Leslie and her team focus their work at the intersection of nutrition education and brand innovation.  Sponsor: The podcast is made possible by FoodNiche-ED, a gamified platform that enhances the knowledge of food and health. Learn more on foodniche-ed.com Twitter: https://twitter.com/foodniche_ed Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/foodniche_ed/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/FoodNicheEd/ LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/company/foodniche-education About Dr. Olayanju: Dr. Julia Olayanju is a scientist and educator who advocates for enhanced nutrition education in schools and communities. She is the founder of FoodNiche-ED and FoodNiche where she and her team are driving a healthier future through programming, resources and technology.

In today's episode, Torrey Snow delves into the latest anti-theft policy implemented by Giant Foods in Baltimore. This new rule restricts minors from entering the store after 6 p.m. without an adult. He discusses the broader implications of retail theft on local businesses and communities, criticizing the lack of intervention from city officials and leaders.

Pancakes are part of the fabric of American breakfasts, yet so many ready-to-make mixes and syrups are packed with additives, preservatives and artificial sweeteners. Blanket Pancakes & Syrup, the dream child of the pancake-loving Carter family, are here to weave a new narrative of what pancake mixes should be. Meet the rising star of the breakfast aisle: a line of irresistibly flavored pancake mixes and syrups that are made from simple ingredients families can trust. “We love pancakes, but between busy family life and health complications that arose after I gave birth, finding a product that combined both efficiency with health-conscious ingredients wasn't easy at all. So, with some determination, a big appetite and a willingness to get my hands dirty in the kitchen, I perfected the right recipe. From there, “Blanket was born” said Marquita Carter, creator, and founder of Blanket Pancakes & Syrup. From a humble passion project to a startup success story, Blanket has already transformed the breakfast landscape with its all-natural, irresistibly flavored pancake mixes and syrups. In the last year, it hit shelves at grocers across the nation, including Walmart, Costco, Food Lion, Giant Foods and Hannaford. The reasons so many people are catching on to what makes Blanket such a standout breakfast product include: Delicious mixes: The pancake mixes come in buttermilk, honey butter, sweet potato, chocolate chip, vegan and an upcoming gluten-free buttermilk. Mouthwatering syrups: Available in original, vanilla and cinnamon, these syrups take an already outstanding batch of pancakes to the next level. Recognizable, wholesome ingredients: All of Blanket's products are made from natural ingredients customers (and their bodies) can recognize. Each batch is free from bleached flour, preservatives, high fructose corn syrup, GMOs and eggs. Ready in minutes: The Carters know great pancakes take time and patience, but with Blanket, the “just add water” mixes make it simple to get pure, fluffy pancakes on the griddle in minutes. Blanket Pancakes & Syrup is committed to providing top-notch all natural products that make breakfast time the best meal of the day, at any time of the day. Blanket is available online at Amazon and grocery stores nationwide, including Walmart, Costco, Food Lion, Giant Foods and Hannaford. Web: https://blanketps.com About: Blanket Pancakes & Syrup is committed to providing top-notch all natural products that make breakfast time the best meal of the day, at any time of the day. The purest ingredients for the best-tasting, easiest pancakes and syrup is what Blanket's all about. Priding itself on clean, natural ingredients, Blanket Pancakes & Syrup stands out in a market of mixes packed with preservatives, artificial sweeteners and other risky additives. ► Luxury Women Handbag Discounts: https://www.theofficialathena.... ► Become an Equus Coach®: https://equuscoach.com/?rfsn=7... ► For $5 in ride credit, download the Lyft app using my referral link: https://www.lyft.com/ici/ASH58... ► Review Us: https://itunes.apple.com/us/po... ► Subscribe: http://www.youtube.com/c/AshSa... ► Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/1lov... ► Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ashsa... ► Twitter: https://twitter.com/1loveAsh ► Blog: http://www.ashsaidit.com/blog #atlanta #ashsaidit #theashsaiditshow #ashblogsit #ashsaidit®Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-ash-said-it-show--1213325/support.

Kyle Maggard, Founder & CEO of Over Easy.Kyle started OverEasy in the fall of 2018, reflecting on his time as a former college athlete at Westpoint and as an Army Captain where living a healthy and active life wasn't just his passion, but his job. As a busy father, husband, and entrepreneur, he came to recognize that staying fit and eating healthy were harder than they sounded in his busy lifestyle, and without a convenient and nutritious option to start his day, set out to create one for himself.Over East started with a year of Kyle iterating and testing different recipes while still at Harvard Business School, until he found the right combination for the company's first product — a delicious, high protein, high fiber oat-based breakfast bar, believing that a good breakfast sets the tone for the rest of the day.Since moving back to Cleveland, Kyle raised $5 million in funding for the business and has grown Over Easy's distribution across national retailers like Wegmans, Giant Foods, and others including Whole Foods, who was Kyle's first partner.While aiming to cater to all consumers, Over Easy found an early niche among both college and professional athletes as collegiate athletic programs were among the brand's first customers in January 2020 and the bars are now supplied to over 20 NFL locker rooms and a few dozen MLB, NBA, WNBA, and NHL locker rooms.Kyle exudes passion for the business and for Cleveland — While Over Easy started with a breakfast bar, it is more than apparent after talking with Kyle, even only for a few minutes, that his ambitions to fix a broken food system, starting with breakfast, are far greater and his desire to help build up the Cleveland entrepreneurial community is inspiring. It was a ton of fun to learn from Kyle how he thinks about branding, leadership, quality, excellence, motivations, enjoying the process, his vision for the future, challenges faced along the way, and lots more!-----SPONSORS: John Carroll University Boler College of Business || Impact Architects & NinetyJohn Carroll University Boler College of Business: https://business.jcu.edu/ As we've heard time and time again from entrepreneurs on Lay of The Land — many of whom are proud alumni of John Carroll University —  success in this ever-changing world of business requires a dynamic and innovative mindset, deep understanding of emerging technology and systems, strong ethics, leadership prowess, acute business acumen… all qualities nurtured through the Boler College of Business!With 4 different MBA programs of study — spanning Professional, Online, Hybrid, and 1-Year-Flexible — The Boler College of Business provides flexible timelines and various class structures for each MBA Track — including online, in-person, hybrid and asynchronous — to offer the most effective options for you, in addition to the ability to participate in an elective International Study Tour, providing unparalleled opportunities to expand your global business knowledge by networking with local companies overseas and experiencing a new culture.The career impact of a Boler MBA is formative and will help prepare you for this future of business and get more out of your career. To learn more about John Carroll University's Boler MBA programs, please go to business.jcu.eduThe Boler College of Business is fully accredited by AACSB International, the highest accreditation a College of Business can have.Impact Architects & NinetyLay of The Land is brought to you by Ninety. As a Lay of The Land listener, you can leverage a free trial with Ninety, the platform that helps teams build great companies and the only officially licensed software for EOS® — used by over 7,000 companies and 100,000 users!This episode is brought to you by Impact Architects. As we share the stories of entrepreneurs building incredible organizations throughout NEO, Impact Architects helps those leaders — many of whom we've heard from as guests on Lay of The Land — realize their visions and build great organizations. I believe in Impact Architects and the people behind it so much, that I have actually joined them personally in their mission to help leaders gain focus, align together, and thrive by doing what they love! As a listener, you can sit down for a free consultation with Impact Architects by visiting ia.layoftheland.fm!-----LINKS:https://overeasyfoods.com/https://www.instagram.com/overeasyfoodshttps://www.linkedin.com/in/kylejmaggard27/Mitch Kroll's Lay of The Land Episode-----Stay up to date by signing up for Lay of The Land's weekly newsletter — sign up here.Past guests include Justin Bibb (Mayor of Cleveland), Pat Conway (Great Lakes Brewing), Steve Potash (OverDrive), Umberto P. Fedeli (The Fedeli Group), Lila Mills (Signal Cleveland), Stewart Kohl (The Riverside Company), Mitch Kroll (Findaway — Acquired by Spotify), and many more.Connect with Jeffrey Stern on LinkedIn — https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeffreypstern/Follow Jeffrey Stern on X @sternJefe — https://twitter.com/sternjefeFollow Lay of The Land on X @podlayofthelandhttps://www.jeffreys.page/

Chef Carlos Raba was born and raised in the Mexican state of Sinaloa by his mother and her four sisters. He learned to make tortillas by hand in his uncle's restaurant and picked up classic Mexican recipes like cochinita pibil and lengua from his aunts and grandmother. Raba's mother was a journalist who was critical of Mexican politicians, so fearing for their lives, she sought asylum and moved the family to the suburbs of Washington, D.C. when Raba was 17. After he graduated from high school, Raba attended business school for a year and then began working in grocery stores. He started at the Whole Foods in Kentlands, Maryland, trying his hand at different roles—butcher, fishmonger, cheesemonger, and eventually store manager. He. then moved to Giant Foods and worked at various locations for five years. Tiring of the corporate life, his business partner Lane Harlan convinced him to use his creativity and family recipes to open Clavel in Baltimore in 2015. In a Converted American grill, Raba serves the same shrimp ceviche recipe that his familky taught him when he was 6 years old, along withother Sinaloan specialties in a relaxed, communal setting. In 2017, Raba was named “Best Chef. in Baltimore” by City Paper, in 2018 Carlos Raba was name also name “Rising star chef” by Star chef publications and on 2022 Carlos Raba was a “James Beard” semifinalist. Carlos Raba also a practitioner of Brazilian jiujitsu, hold a black belt first degree under Vicente Jr team and his passion for jiujitsu lead him to Co-found Guardian Baltimore a 501(c)3 nonprofit martial arts gym in Remington, Baltimore that offer classes in Brazilian jiu jitsu. The gym is free for kids ages 6 – 18, and offers affordable sliding-scale memberships for adults. the space was founded on the belief that almost everyone wants to be a part of a tribe, and they work daily to serve as a vital space for their community.  

Another retailer is threatening to close stores due to theft.This time, it's Giant Food, which operates about 170 stores in Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, and Washington, DC. Giant President Ira Kress told Washington DC radio station WTOP on Monday that thieves are stealing "everything," from shrimp to deodorant, at Giant's stores. In response, the chain has placed more items under lock and key, forcing customers to ask for an employee's help.Kress said he's worried about violence at Giant's stores."What we always must do is ensure we can run our stores safely and profitably," Kress said to WTOP. "If I can't do both of those things, I'll have no choice but to close a store. This clearly takes a toll." Kress didn't say which stores might close.To deter theft, Giant has also limited the number of items that customers can buy at once through its self-checkout lanes to 20, Kress said. The move has drawn criticism from some customers who want to buy full baskets of groceries, from produce to packaged foods, he added.Support the show

Rapidly escalating shoplifting incidents in Giant Foods, a prevalent grocery chain on the East Coast, have left its president, Ira Cress, battling to keep his 165 supermarkets operational. In the face of substantial losses due to theft and vandalism, he's straining to provide a safe environment for customers, employees, and vendors alike. The harsh reality has hit retail as incidences of theft have spiraled tenfold in the last five years, he explained. The tenacious CEO keenly highlighted the dire situation, remarking that the threat of store closures lies imminent if the current trend persists, demonstrating a cruel irony that the community's "shenanigans" would result in creating a food desert for themselves.Witnessing the impact of these issues firsthand, Cress noted that the store closures aren't solely a financial decision but also a safety measure. Moreover, his concern about the increasing violence associated with theft isn't unfounded. An unsettling episode in a Maryland Giant store saw a deadly shootout between a security guard and a shoplifter, an incident that echoes an unfortunate truth about the current retail landscape. The situation brings to light the grim reality of running a business in such circumstances, a stark contrast to the romantic notions of community support for local retailers.While the urban retail exodus continues, suburban stores are faring better, showcasing fewer shoplifting incidents and a safer environment. Regrettably, the deteriorating conditions in cities have left businesses with little choice but to limit operations or face closure. The stark message for these communities: clean up your act or lose essential services. Meanwhile, retailers are faced with the irony of creating safety measures that inconvenience their customers, such as limiting access to a single entrance and exit, a direct response to soaring shoplifting numbers.#RetailCrisis #ShopliftingEpidemic #SuburbanResilienceSupport the show

0:00 Intro 4:35 WW3 27:55 Headlines 38:30 Debt ceiling - GOP sellouts vote for debt ceiling blowout - The collapse of the dollar - and the United States - is now a certainty - Analyst warns that NATO plans to pre-emptively NUKE Moscow - Russia's nuclear retaliation would obliterate western cities like London and D.C. - Why I pity famous actors - France tries to outlaw privacy crypto coins but there's a simple workaround - Why private digital money is the solution to government financial tyranny - Ukraine launches drone strikes at Russia's oil refineries - Giant Foods grocery chain warns about huge theft increase, may have to SHUTTER stores - Grocery stores are going to function like PRISON CAMPS with armed guard and forced rationing For more updates, visit: http://www.brighteon.com/channel/hrreport NaturalNews videos would not be possible without you, as always we remain passionately dedicated to our mission of educating people all over the world on the subject of natural healing remedies and personal liberty (food freedom, medical freedom, the freedom of speech, etc.). Together, we're helping create a better world, with more honest food labeling, reduced chemical contamination, the avoidance of toxic heavy metals and vastly increased scientific transparency. ▶️ Every dollar you spend at the Health Ranger Store goes toward helping us achieve important science and content goals for humanity: https://www.healthrangerstore.com/ ▶️ Sign Up For Our Newsletter: https://www.naturalnews.com/Readerregistration.html ▶️ Brighteon: https://www.brighteon.com/channels/hrreport ▶️ Join Our Social Network: https://brighteon.social/@HealthRanger ▶️ Check In Stock Products at: https://PrepWithMike.com

  Vidcast:  https://youtu.be/65ndbfzootw   The FDA and Old Europe Cheese are recalling all Brie and Camembert Cheeses sold under the following brands: Black Bear, Block and Barrel, Charmant, Cobblestone, Culinary Tour, Fredericks, Fresh Thyme, Glenview Farms, Good and Gather, Heinen, Joan of Arc, La Bonne Vie, Lidl, Life in Provence, Market 32, Maitre D', Metropolitan, Prestige,  PrimoTaglio, Red Apple, Reny Picot, St. Randeaux, Taste of Inspiration, and Trader Joes.  These cheeses are contaminated with listeria monocytogenes.  The bacterium causes severe or life-threatening infections in the very young, older persons, and those with immune system deficits.    The products were sold  nationwide at Albertsons, Safeway, Meijer, Harding's, Shaw's, Price Chopper, Market Basket, Raley's, Save Mart, Giant Foods, Stop & Shop, Fresh Thyme, Lidl, Sprouts, Athenian Foods, and Whole Foods. If you have any of these cheeses in your frig, do not consume it but return it to the point of purchase.  For additional information about the recall, call Old Europe Cheese at 1-269-925-5003 ext 335.   https://www.fda.gov/safety/recalls-market-withdrawals-safety-alerts/old-europe-cheese-inc-issues-voluntary-recall-its-brie-and-camembert-cheeses-due-possible-health   #cheese #brie #camebert #listeria #infection #recall  

Episode #142 – This FANTASTIC FELLAS FRIDAY, we celebrate Chef Alvin Zhou. Alvin is a Tasty producer, who makes a ton of Giant Foods at Tasty. He gets many challenges from his friends. He is in the Tasty New York City and has his own series at tasty called Make It Big where he makes regular food but larger.  Alvin started making food videos for BuzzFeed in 2015.  He quickly moved up the career ladder there and became a senior producer in 2019.  He runs the Tasty series Make It Big where he makes unusually large dishes.  He's of Chinese descent and has made videos for Tasty Japan. WHAT DO YOU HAVE TO SAY? LINKS BELOW FOR: APPLE, GOOGLE,PANDORA, and SPOTIFY. https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ladiespromotingtransparentadvocacy/id1526382637 https://podcasts.google.com/?feed=aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkLnBvZGJlYW4uY29tL2xhZGllc3Byb21vdGluZ3RyYW5zcGFyZW50YWR2b2NhY3kvZmVlZC54bWw&ep=14 https://www.pandora.com/podcast/ladiespromotingtransparentadvocacy/PC:52161?corr=17965216&part=ug&_branch_match_id=81955799824.9581330 https://open.spotify.com/show/5x7xSxWi2wj2UXPsWnZ0cw?si=peGax6j6SIumBT5tq7_hhg Sources:  Alvin Zhou | Buzzfeed Tasty Wiki | Fandom – Buzzfeed.com, Snoop and Martha's Very Tasty Halloween Special, YouTube: https://youtube.fandom.com/wiki/Alvin_Zhou Follow us on Twitter: @AdvocacyLadies Follow us on Instagram:  @advocacyladies Podcast Email: podcasthostshapta19@gmail.com Org. Email: Ladiespromotingtransparentadvo@gmail.com Podcast Call-in Line: 404-855-7723

Carlos Raba was born and raised in the Mexican state of Sinaloa by his mother and her four sisters. He learned to make tortillas by hand in his uncle's restaurant and picked up classic North Mexican recipes like cochinita pibil and lengua from his aunts and grandmother. Critical of Mexican politics and fearing for their lives, Raba's journalist mother sought asylum and moved the family to the suburbs of Washington, D.C. when Raba was 17.After he graduated from high school, Raba attended business school for a year and began working in grocery stores. He started at the Whole Foods in Kentlands, Maryland, trying his hand at different roles—butcher, fishmonger, cheesemonger, and eventually store manager. He then moved to Giant Foods and worked at various locations for five years. Growing tired of the corporate life and inspired by his business partner Lane Harlan, Raba used his creativity and family recipes to open Clavel in Baltimore in 2015. Raba serves the same shrimp ceviche recipe that his grandmother taught him when he was 6 years old, along with other Sinaloan specialties in a relaxed, communal setting. In 2017, Raba was named “Best Chef ” by Baltimore's City Paper and in 2018, he earned a StarChefs Rising Star Chef award.In 2020, he earned his black belt in Brazilian Jiu-jitsu under Vicente Junior. The same year, he also founded Guardian Baltimore gym, a 501(c)3 non-profit in the Remington neighborhood of the City of Baltimore, dedicated to providing kids ages 5-17 with FREE training in Brazilian Jiu-jitsu and Yoga. Right now 30 kids are training for FREE through donations and the support of gym memberships.Please subscribe, rate, and review our show on iTunes.Follow us on Twitter and  InstagramBe sure to check out our other podcasts:Mastermind Team's Robcast - Mastermind Team's Robcast is an irreverent and hilarious podcast covering all things pop culture and weird news. Let's Watch It Again - Let's Watch It Again is a movie review podcast from MTR The Network.★ Support this podcast ★

Today is Wednesday, June 16. The 2020 Junior World Bull Riding champion is from Prince George's County, MD, the 13-year-old Nicholas Jackson is the first champion from Maryland to hold the title. The National Landing BID is transforming the park at 101 12th Street to include colorful, Instagrammable seating and displays, summer-themed giveaways, and work-from-anywhere essentials like WiFi, standing desks, and special programming there all summer long. Former Washington Football Team Quarterback Alex Smith has put his McLean, VA mansion for sale for 6.7 million. Neighbors include Nationals Pitcher Max Scherzer. Tatte Bakery & Cafe has signed on to fill the space at CityCenterDC where Momofuku restaurant closed in 2020. The Boston-based chain already has 3 locations in Bethesda, West End and Dupont. It's Academic has new sponsors after losing Giant Foods after 54 years, local philanthropist David M. Rubenstein is the show's new title sponsor and Virginia-based MITRE is the Platinum sponsor. Beloved quiz show that features local high school students has been on WRC-4 for over 60 years. National Park Service's Mike Litterst joins us to talk about the plans for the 4th of July fireworks on the National Mall and the best places to view the fireworks. From Real.Fun.DC. “The Tommy + Kelly Show” is produced in Washington, DC providing news, culture, playful conversation, positive energy, and a dose of morning fun any time. Download the Real.Fun.DC. APP to check out our wide array of programming Follow Kelly Collis Instagram and Twitter: @CityShopGirl LinkedIN: Kelly Collis Follow Tommy McFLY Twitter: @TommyMcFLY Instagram: @MrTommyMcFLY LinkedIN: Tommy McFLY

RadioPublic|LibSyn|YouTube|Patreon|Square Cash (Share code: Send $5, get $5! David Waldman brings us the latest William Belknap news and opinions, and much, much more today!  Donald Trump made his long-awaited pivot yesterday, but you got to hope this won’t break Democrats’ stride toward action. Republican senators now (anonymously) regret not doing more to contain Trump. Donald, Jared, Ivanka, etc. could not be contacted for comment. Remember when you see Capitol Police retreating from mobs, there’s an unarmed videographer running backwards beside them. Three New York Times journalists were at the Capitol when it was breached and can tell you how that felt. Outside, the DC Guard and others stood down, leaving U.S.Capitol Police alone on the front lines, dying. Metaphorically, they’re still taking bullets today, with the Capitol Chief resigning, and the Senate sergeant-at-arms now fired. Donald Trump is less metaphorically killing off his own fan base, as well. Donald Trump promised he’d be right there with the rioters, but you know how he prefers to watch stuff on the TV. After all, the only thing Donald is able to control is a switcher. Fresh out of lines, Don Jr. tried to capture his father’s love before the Capitol assault, but instead returned to shooting Kim Guilfoyle working it to “Gloria”. Giant Foods kept the vaccine line moving by giving away shots before they went stale. Republican Mary Miller, Illinois' 15th Congressional District, 5th column, wanted to point out how unappreciated Adolf Hitler is these days, an opinion that is rightfully unappreciated. Dominion Voting Systems plan to deliver $1.3 Billion of stfu to Sidney Powell. Lauren Boebert wants to Q-aucus a right wing Squad, but for her it’s every posse for itself. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has bigger concerns, and bigger clout. Democrats limit their effectiveness by holding themselves to standards that Republicans long ago abandoned. Finally, they are stepping away from PAYGO rules, at least for bills relating to COVID and climate change.

2020 may have majorly fucked us, but what followed—what was revealed to us—was how institutions operate, the persistent cloaking of racist attitudes, and even how class functions. Take ,for example, buying groceries. When we go to Giant Foods, Whole Foods, or Costco, what are we expecting? Are we expecting a certain standard of cleanliness? How do we react to people that we encounter?We investigate the absurdity of America’s mythologies, by reading Chapter 1 of Kurt Vonnegut’s Breakfast of Champions. Why have we blindly accept strange traditions in flag raising and lowering? What does the symbology on our money refer to? Why has the year ‘1492’ been drilled into our brains?We then detour into ethics. Everything has the potential to be art. Reflecting back on Albert Camus’ The Myth of Sisyphus, we discuss creation, existence, and meaning-making. Can every day objects be art? If I place a toilet in a museum, does that make it art?

Topics discussed on today's show: Coronavirus Spreading, Top Gun, Mardi Gras Cancelled, Wiz Contest, Dolly Parton Sainthood, Should Have Been Invented, Birthdays, News of the Day, 20 in 20, NBA Draft, Conan O'Brien Show, Dueling Dinosaurs, The Sound Of Venus, Twitter Misinformation, Bit Coin Up, Hurricane Iota, George Clooney Suitcases, Scotty I'm Scared, Princess Day, FCC and OIP, Homeless in Buildings, Changing Careers, Legal Prostitution, Crossing Streams, Giant Foods, Ferry Signs, Promising Vaccine Studies, and Apologies.

Brand loyalty is something that every company wants but few actually attain. To build a loyal customer base, you need to provide the best experiences possible, offer unique products or services, and deliver on quality and in a timely fashion. It’s a tough ask, and for those in the grocery industry, it’s even more difficult since differentiation between product selection is not as easy as it might be in other verticals.  But when it comes to customer loyalty, there are ways to separate yourself from the pack.  And that’s where Rachel Stephens comes in. As the Vice President of Marketing, Digital and Loyalty for Stop & Shop, a major grocery chain with more than 400 stores, she thinks about this every day. Thanks to a new online platform and through a loyalty program that customers actually want to engage in, Rachel explains that Stop & Shop is finally gaining access to some of the dark data it couldn’t access in the past.  On this episode of Up Next in Commerce, Rachel explains why that kind of data is a true game-changer for any brand. Plus she reveals some of the consumer psychology that she looks at when building loyalty programs, and she peers into the future at how the use of A.I., machine learning and natural language processing will further advance not just Stop & Shop’s ecommerce experience, but the entire ecommerce industry. Main Takeaways: Is it Actually on the Grocery List?: When building or improving loyalty programs, having an understanding of data is critical. Everyone has to take on the role of data scientist and look at the data analytically, especially as it relates to consumer behavior. Just because a customer says they want something or they intend to make a purchase, does not mean the data will always show that. Word for advice: trust the data and build a program around what is actually happening instead of what customers are saying.   Accessing Dark Data: For too long, grocery stores have asked only for customer phone numbers in order for them to have access to loyalty cards. But if that phone number isn’t linked to a real name or address, and is changing hands faster than an email address would, there is a huge amount of data left in the dark, which makes it impossible to build a meaningful database of customer information. To access that critical data, companies need to build programs that are truly enticing that customers want to share their data with that helps not only the brand but also the consumer. The Psychology of a Discount: Tune in to hear what Rachel saw in the data when reviewing their sales and discounts. Hint: higher is not always better. For an in-depth look at this episode, check out the full transcript below. Quotes have been edited for clarity and length. --- Up Next in Commerce is brought to you by Salesforce Commerce Cloud. Respond quickly to changing customer needs with flexible Ecommerce connected to marketing, sales, and service. Deliver intelligent commerce experiences your customers can trust, across every channel. Together, we’re ready for what’s next in commerce. Learn more at salesforce.com/commerce --- Transcript: Stephanie: Welcome back to Up Next in Commerce, I'm your host Stephanie Postals, co-founder of Mission.org. Today we have Rachel Stevens on the show, vice president of marketing, digital and loyalty at Stop & Shop. Rachel, welcome. Rachel: Thank you very much for having me. Stephanie: Yeah, I'm really excited to have you on. I saw a little bit of your background before hopping on here and I got very excited when I saw that you have worked at the TJX companies, which I was hoping we could start there with your background. Rachel: Are you a brand fan? Stephanie: Oh, yes. I mean, I love TJ Maxx and when I saw that I'm like, "Ooh, this is my interview. This is the one." Rachel: Yeah, I was actually the assistant vice president of CRM Loyalty [inaudible] within TJX. And that really matched the TJX rewards program ... was a program that fell under my group and my responsibilities included the day to days and ensuring that our customers really wanted to participate in our program, our loyalty program so that we had clean data at the end of the day. And we were able to provide additional value in savings on top of what customers were already saving with the strong value that TJX stores provide. Stephanie: Very cool. How did you first get interested in the world of loyalty marketing, what lead you there? Rachel: I started actually in loyalty marketing at Pet Smart in their corporate headquarters in Phoenix and I think the thing that really appealed to me was marriage of data and customer communications, so understanding what customers say and what customers actually do is vital, I think, to the success of an organization because customers can say, "Yes, I have intent to purchase X,Y,Z." But when you look at the actual data, the data doesn't lie. Rachel: So, loyalty programs give you a vital tool for success within your organization to take a look at consumer data and then apply your marketing tactics really that are from acquisition, retention or reactivation perspective based on what that consumer is doing in a particular moment. So it's really, to me, such a great marriage of a lot of different areas within marketing and it just was something that I developed an immediate passion for. When I started there on the Pet Perks Program and then went to TJX to work on the loyalty program for TJ Maxx, Marshalls, Home Goods, [inaudible] Trading Post, and HomeSense, I feel like when I was there honed in on my skills within the loyalty space, so the position at Stop & Shop to really develop the role and develop what the new program was going to look like was incredibly appealing just because of my passion for this space and for retail. Stephanie: That's so much good experience to be able to bring to Stop & Shop. How have you seen consumer behaviors or loyalty programs having to change since you started? Rachel: Since I started in loyalty or since I started at Stop & Shop? Stephanie: I'd say in loyalty program, in loyalty overall. Since you started back in the pets days. Rachel: Yeah, I think there was a transactional nature to loyalty programs in the past. I think it was you give and get and that was usually based in points programs whereas today obviously I think more experiential programs have come about and providing more omni-channel experience, which wasn't really the case back when I first started within the loyalty space. I'd say that there's a number of people that really do a great job at this. I think Sephora's loyalty program is top notch. They do an excellent job at marrying the in-store and the online experience, really making it truly omni-channel tied in with their loyalty program. Rachel: I think that a lot of retailers have caught up and are doing a good job and I still think there's a lot of room to grow. And I think grocery retail was stuck in the loyalty stage of two tier pricing and I think we have a to model grocery loyalty programs more after what a lot of other retailers are doing in the loyalty space and even hotels. Airlines, I think that soft benefits and providing experiential benefits are really critical to the success of a program. Stephanie: Yep, yeah completely agree. Now that we're touching on grocery a bit I would love for you to explain what Stop & Shop is for anyone who doesn't know. Rachel: Sure, Stop & Shop is actually a grocery retailer with over 100 years in the industry. It started out as a very small grocery in the east coast and now we have over 400 stores and of course our online experience at Stop&Shop.com and the Stop & Shop app. Stephanie: That's great. And Stop & Shop, you guys just started moving into e-commerce, right? I think I saw that you launched a new platform just in a couple months ago, am I right? Rachel: We did actually, on July 28th in fact. We launched ... we had Peapod with a partner company. Peapod actually was owned by Ahold Delhaize, which is the parent company that owns Stop & Shop and we have integrated Peapod into Stop & Shop now. So, within Stop & Shop's footprint to order grocery delivery or to get pickup you actually now go to the Stop & Shop website or the Stop & Shop app versus Peapod. That integration occurred again at the end of July, and it's been going incredibly well so far. Stephanie: What was that transition ... what did that look like behind the scenes of not only integrating a current path that people are using but also I'm sure adding on additional functionalities that maybe weren't already there. What was the process behind the scenes or any maybe hiccups that you guys experienced when you were going through all this because it sounds like a big project. Rachel: Yes, yes. In fact, huge project. And all of our sister brands went through the same scope of work at the same time. We work with an internal agency who actually is responsible for all of that development work. And the agency actually had to develop the platform for all the brands. There was Giant Martin's out of Carlisle, Pennsylvania and Giant Foods in Maryland, also went through the same transition. Rachel: And there was obviously ... it requires a lot of work to marry the database, really marry those platforms. There was a Stop & Shop website, a Peapod website and H Brands app, so marrying those together was a huge, enormous undertaking that has taken approximately two years. And when I first started two and a half years ago actually that was really when we had worked on all the business requirements for this project. And it just takes a significant amount of time to match up all the data on our customers and combine those platforms and ensure that everything is running smoothly because if you think about the number of transactions that the Peapod site had going through it before and the number of customers that were going to the Stop & Shop site, you can imagine that there's just a tremendous amount of customers that we wanted to ensure were not left behind in this transition. Rachel: So, there's definitely a lot of work that went into this project and in terms of hiccups, of course there was a lot of those. But I think you try and block out all of the things that went wrong during the launch and you just only remember the good, right? Stephanie: Yep, that's great. And I'm also very familiar with Giant. I'm from Maryland. I'm sure everyone else is like, "What's that?" I know very well what that is. Rachel: Oh, great. That's great. Stephanie: Yeah, so when you guys are thinking about launching this new e-commerce platform, what kind of opportunities were you excited that it would open up? I'm sure you get access to new kind of data and you can have new offerings and you can send that data maybe to your other partners and maybe they can give you deals. What things were you most excited about that you didn't have access to before? Rachel: I think that what I'm most excited about is omni-channel data access. We did not, again, have that before because it was Peapod who really had all of the data for delivery and pickup and Stop & Shop who had all the brick & mortar data. The combination and looking at a consumer from an omni-channel, to me, is what's most exciting. Rachel: If I'm going to do a marketing campaign using digital tactics or any sort of in-store tactics I really need to know what you do as a customer. You could channel switch, you could go from pick-up to in-store to delivery all within a very short period of time. And so, I think the efficiency in marketing, by having that data to me is really what's most exciting. And being able to actually accurately talk to our customers is something that really interests me because how many time have you received communications from a company where you're like, "Wait, I was just in there. I just bought X, Y, Z and now they're sending me an offer for something," or the communication just seems out of left field. Rachel: And I think of years past when Starbucks didn't have a fully integrated data solution. If I was a coffee drinker and I always drank coffee once in a while I'd get tea offers and it just didn't make any sense to me. I think it was just bad use of data. Stephanie: Yeah, I still get that right now. I'll get things marketed to me around pregnancy. I'm like, "I am not pregnant and haven't been for a while." Rachel: You're not pregnant. Stephanie: In a while. Come on, about six months ago, stop that. Rachel: Right, exactly. Stephanie: That's smart. So, what are you excited for omni-channel in general outside of Stop & Shop. What do you think that landscape's going to look like in the next couple of years? Rachel: I think that COVID has certainly advanced a lot of, specifically in retail, advanced a lot of retailers. I think their technology and their offerings, I think omni-channel, to me, has to be that seamless experience in-store, online. And it has to be being able to look at you from a customer lens and understanding that you may channel switch and your experience or the offers that you're given or you're customer service shouldn't change. There shouldn't everybody anything remarkably different about whatever channel you're in. Rachel: So, for me I think that the omni-channel landscape is going to continue improving and COVID has definitely advanced that. Stephanie: To dive back into the loyalty program conversation, because I'm very interested in that, we haven't had a ton of people on the show who've talked about that, so I'll probably keep circling around that for a little bit. Rachel: Sure. Stephanie: I want to hear how you think about developing a successful loyalty program now. How do you get people to engage? How do you get them to be excited about it? Rachel: The most important thing is research. You have to understand what customers want first and foremost of course. That's the first step in any real loyalty program whether you're launching a loyalty program or enhancing a loyalty program or just completely transforming a loyalty program. You have to understand what research, what customers want. You have to look at the data and understand what they actually do. Rachel: So, it's the this is what I say I want and then this is what I actually do. And you rally have to be a data scientist and understand what it is that is bubbling to the top. If I know my to customers are coming in and I'm looking at the data that tells me they come in X amount of times per week and they shop for key products, then I can understand and I can translate that back into transactional offers. I can say, "Okay, these are the top products that I need to make sure are relevant to that consumer base on a regular basis." Rachel: But it doesn't get at really what drives them and motivates them to be loyal to the brand. So, I think that that research is such a critical step in really understanding how consumers really feel about your brand. You don't want to be the brand that customers just feel like you're on the corner and you're convenient so they have to shop you. You want to be the brand that they want to shop at. Loyalty isn't just about the program, it has to be about the total solution that retailer provides and your feelings about that retailer. Stephanie: It seems like there would be a lot dark data out there, especially for maybe grocery stores because I'm thinking, would my local grocery store even know that I go in and out because I don't interact with them online right now. I sometimes put my phone number in, sometimes don't. How would you make sure you have a good sample size of people to use for your research when building that out if maybe you still have quite a few of your customers that you don't even know yet. Rachel: No, I think that's a great question. I think you have to ... There are panels that you can go, usually your consumer insights team has access to panels of customers who volunteer to participate in research studies, so that's typically the first place that I go if we don't have enough data within the database. If there's enough data in the database to start with, usually that does require an e-mail address or a physical mailing address and not just phone number. Rachel: So, if your local grocery store only requires phone number and ... I'll say actually that was the case for Stop & Shop prior to the transformation of our new loyalty program where we really just ask for phone number point of sale. And that gave customers access to that two tier pricing. That doesn't do anything for a company, just having phone numbers and actually going to build off your database of course. Then you don't have a way to really round out that customer experience and understand. You got to be able to tap into that customer and ask them what they want. Rachel: It is really important that you're coming up with a program or if you have a program that it's enticing enough that customers want to give their data, they want to give you the right e-mail address or they want to give you the right mailing address so that they do participate in the program but they also are willing to give your opinion when you ask it. Stephanie: Yep. It also seems like making sure you have a seamless experience when asking for that data is really important because I can think of a number of times different stores have been like, "Oh, can you type in your e-mail?" Or just, "Read it off to me and I'll type it in very slowly." I'm like, "Ugh, just don't worry about it," or "I don't want to use your old type pad that's not really working and I'm going to have to delete it 10 times to get it right." Rachel: Right, exactly. Yeah, you're absolutely right it has to be simple, seamless. I think digital cards is a great way to make it simple and seamless. It's easy enough for a POS to scan a digital barcode that ties back to your loyalty card or phone number, provided the fact that the number actually is tied to a valid e-mail address or valid mailing address. Any way that you can provide convenience for consumers to access their program seamlessly, quickly is really important. Stephanie: Yeah, I completely agree. When you're setting this up, even If you don't have access to maybe huge amounts of data, are there any unifying themes that people just generally when it comes to loyalty or rewards programs where you're like, no matter where I've been it seems to always get someone to sign up if we have this or this offering. Rachel: Well, I think a based program, it has to be about savings, right? Every program is at it's core about saving, so hotel, airline, you're earning points to get free something or to save on something. And so, at it's core you have to have a savings in the value proposition. And then I think everything else that goes on top of that whether you have a tiered program where you're providing your top tier customers with more of those experiential benefits or more of those softer benefits is really, it's dependent on the industry and your ability to provide different levels of benefits to customers. Rachel: I think in the supermarket industry you don't see a lot of tiered programs. I think that that's mostly because there's not a lot of experiential benefits that you can provide that consumers really are interested in. I think a lot of customers look at grocery shopping as a chore. There are, there's certainly a core of customers who really enjoy it but for the most part a lot busy consumers today do look at it as a chore and I think that lingering in a store is not something that a lot of people are really interested in. Stephanie: Yep, yeah I completely agree. Is there any research that y'all have done when to what really matters from a savings perspective? What percent actually drives someone to purchase something they maybe wouldn't have purchased prior to seeing that savings? Maybe 5% eh, maybe not, 20% probably so. Anything that you've seen around that? Rachel: It's funny that the higher up you go in savings, a lot of times customers say they don't believe that. When you say save 20% or 25% or whatever, it seems somewhat unbelievable and I think a lot of customers question it. With our go rewards program we actually know that customers saved 15% or more. We did a lot of research because the and more was actually the savings is more like an average of 20% but customers really felt like, "That seems high, that seems really unbelievable." So, 15% we're like okay, let's just actually take that down because that seemed to be more palatable percent for customers for some reason. Stephanie: That's really interesting. Rachel: Isn't it? Stephanie: I know. I mean, when you see these shopping sites when it's like 75% off it actually makes you just one be like, "Well, was it ever worth the price that you listed it at?" And then are you going to get a 90% off. So I do question brands that have huge sales like that more than I do with someone who's consistently like, "You get 15 or 20% off no matter what promo code or coupon or anything that you get, it's never going to be higher than that. Rachel: Right, yeah. You start to question the quality and you say, "Oh, geez." I mean I'm sure the average consumer doesn't think in terms of margin but I start thinking about margin. Stephanie: I do too. Like minds, very like minds. [crosstalk 00:22:05]. "How much were you making before this?" Okay. Rachel: Exactly. Stephanie: That's great. How do you think about metrics when it comes to these loyalty programs. Are they unique and very different than maybe metrics for other e-commerce business or other programs that you might set up? Rachel: Well, I think first and foremost most companies will look at sales as a huge metric within their loyalty program because it's an investment for the organizations, so ROI is going to be important. But the ROI actually comes from retention and in some cases reactivation. You know that a lot of times it's true, the cost of getting a customer is equivalent to retaining eight. Rachel: So, I think if you can look at ... most organizations look at sales from the program and incremental sales from the program. I think that that is the real true metric. Engagement of course is also important. And customer satisfaction is vital. Stephanie: Yep, that makes sense. Are there any memorable campaigns that come to mind. You're like, this one was my favorite marketing or any other kind of campaign hat I've done that you want to share? I'm always interested in stories around that. Rachel: Yeah, no I think that I worked on so many great campaigns but the ones that are truly, fully integrated across every channel is that's what's really exciting. When you see a campaign, for example right now this might sound silly or small but we have this pizza campaign. We've got a commercial on air about the best pizza is your own pizza and we've got that campaign in every other channel, so digital, e-mail, social media, through my go rewards program, we throw in extra points when you buy certain products within the category. That's really what excites me is I think when you see it come to life and you see really the full ecosystem within marketing utilized to support something. That's when you really see the power of marketing come to life and you see how it actually makes sense obviously to have one point of view and to be more customer centric in your campaigns. Stephanie: Mm-hmm (affirmative). And it's like a better way to measure things as well if there's this one initiative going across many channels and you can look at it without having a bunch of other players messing the data up. Rachel: Right, right, exactly, exactly. I see some marketing campaigns right now and [inaudible] there's some big players out there that did all of these back to school campaigns and it drove me nuts because it's like we are not back in and it showed all the kids walking down the hall and of course I know that they had all these commercials shot in the can well before a lot of this happened but I feel like you're talking to a consumer base that is in a very different place right now. I think that obviously understanding what consumers are looking for and really being relevant like that pizza campaign. There's so many people who are at home cooking together right now. I feel like that's really where I get most excited is when I see obviously that relevance and then more of that omni-channel and cross channel campaign. I think that that's really where you see some good results from marketing. Stephanie: Yeah, that's as good point about people still running their commercials that they maybe shot a long time ago. The only one that I think has done really well in my mind that I've seen recently is either Trader Joe's or Target that had grab your back to school supplies and it was at a line rack. I'm like, "That's good, that's relevant and I'm going to get some [inaudible] now." Rachel: That's perfect. Stephanie: Yeah, really good. We had someone on this show who was also mentioning you should have different scenarios, especially at a time right now where you don't really know what's going to happen and you should be ready to pull your campaigns and slot something in really quickly. And it seems like a lot of larger brands or especially older brands just didn't think that way or maybe just thought, "Okay, let's just release this and see how it goes anyways." Why do you think that's the case? Why do they still put this out into the world when many of them probably knew it was not a good fit? Rachel: No, and I think it does more harm to your brand than anything to be honest because obviously if you're not relevant and you're not listening to what's going on in the world then I think that it does more home. At the beginning of COVID we did a lot of work around providing at-home solutions. We had a chef who actually did a cooking show within social media. I worked with this chef to come up with a series of cooking shows within Facebook and we did a number of other just activities to do with the kids at home and there was more relevance to our campaigns and it really resonated. Customers really appreciated the fact that we were giving them content that actually was valuable, interesting and just relevant to what was going on in the world. Rachel: You can't be deaf to what's happening and you have to really just make sure you're always paying attention and listening to what customers are saying. Stephanie: Yeah, completely agree. Earlier you were talking about the pizza campaign and how you put on many, many channels. Which channels are you finding are most successful or are there any new ones that you're experimenting with that you're finding some early success in. Rachel: I think that we do a lot within social media and I think that the channels in social media that we're finding some early success in would be Next Door and TikTok to some degree. I think with TikTok, youth are still clear we haven't done a whole lot there but I think that the brands that have been on TikTok and have done some really good work and have seen some great results. And I think the social media channels are probably the ones that give me the most excitement because I think there's such a great way. Rachel: We're working towards integrating commerce into social media. That's a big project that my team is working on right now and it's such a great way to capture an audience when they're just in their downtime. They're in a different kind of mindset and they're more open to maybe looking at inspirational content, recipes, things like that within Pinterest or within Facebook or Instagram. And they may want to buy it right then and there and they may want to say, "I want this recipe, I want it delivered to my house. This is great." So, I think that any of the campaigns that we've done in social have really been my favorites. Stephanie: You mentioned integrating commerce into social media. Are you all taking that initiative on yourself or are you more relying on the platforms to develop the solutions to tap into? What does that look like? Rachel: Yeah, we are relying on platforms. Obviously we have to, there's a lot of work that needs to be done still in this area. And I think that's a little trickier just for a supermarket because you're not going to buy just a tomato. Stephanie: [crosstalk] tomato from Stop & Shop. Rachel: Right, it's not like when you see a pair of shoes on Instagram and you have to have them. You don't really have to have that tomato on Instagram but you may want that full recipe so making sure that there's enough content that is actually worthwhile to the customer I think is the challenge and that's what my team is trying to figure out right now. Stephanie: Got it. When I'm thinking about commerce or social media, has Stop & Shop explored ... or maybe you guys already have this like your own products where it's like you can only get it from here. It's not a generic brand it's actually like ... I mean, that reminds me a lot of what Trader Joe's does. It's like if I want this one, well they discontinued this prune juice I really loved. [inaudible 00:32:00], yep. I love their prune juice, they discontinued it. Anyways, I knew that they were the only ones that I liked it, that's the only one I wanted to have. And so, have you explored something like that of creating certain things that will be top of mind where it's like Stop & Shop is the only one that actually has this kind of recipe of whatever it may be, prune juice. Rachel: Yes, actually in fact we have our own line, Nature's Promise is a proprietary line across the Ahold Delhaize brand. And we have our private label brand of course and then we have Taste of Inspirations which is a really nice higher end private label brand for us. And we are definitely doing more within that space, integrating with go rewards with our new program. When you buy a recipe that is all Nature's Promise ingredients you earn extra go points. Rachel: We have these recipes called take five that were featured within social media and we've got them in our circular and in other areas. And if it's all our Taste of Inspiration products you earn X amount of go points. We have a lot of those types of promotions that we're doing now and that's definitely what we'll be integration into our social media commerce platforms in the future. Stephanie: Very cool. And I feel like there's a lot of interesting opportunities too as you now explore ... you're going to have this new e-commerce platform to get new data and to see what people are really like and what's maybe swaying them to buy one thing versus the other. It seems like there's a lot of opportunity that'll come up around building new offerings that maybe you wouldn't have thought of otherwise. Rachel: Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. And I think if you look at solutions that's definitely really important to our customers right now. There's so many families that are just so busy and providing meal solutions, even a night, a couple nights or a week of meal solutions is such a huge time savings for a lot of families. Stephanie: Yes, I feel that with three boys now. I'm like anything to not have to cook from scratch would be appreciated. [inaudible] it's frozen, whatever it is. If it's edible it's cool. Where does personalization come into play or you guys? How do you think about showing offerings throughout your e-commerce experience or your apps that really connects with the person who's looking there? Rachel: Well, personalization [inaudible] success, so I think whether or not we get it right 100% of the time I think is something that remains to be seen. I think we have made some huge advances in personalization with the new platform, with our program. The more data we have about a consumer's shopping behavior, what they like, the better the offerings that we'll be able to give them. Rachel: So, if I purchase Doritos all of the time, hopefully I'm not getting a offer for something else, Lays potato chips, I should be getting offers for Doritos. So, that relevancy is really, really important. And that's something with this new program that we're providing customers whether it's through product coupons, which today now that I look in my coupon gallery on my app, I have six products that are relevant to what I purchase every week which is really great, so I know the algorithm is working correctly. Rachel: Then on top of that we also have more of those category offers. So, if I'm somebody that always buys fresh produce now we're actually doing more of the $5 off your purchase when you add a fresh produce. More of those category offers that are relevant to what I purchase every day. I think it's incredibly important. And then through the e-commerce journey this is really where I'd like to see us make some improvements. It's on recommendation engine type of logic, so if I'm putting a pizza dough in my basket on my e-commerce platform then hopefully somebody's going to be recommending some mozzarella and pizza sauce to me. Rachel: That type of a level of personalization is something that we strive for and want in the future. We have some degree of that today but that's certainly where I expect we will be going in the near future. Stephanie: Radical. When it comes to those recommendations are there any tools that you're relying on to build that out or is it everything you did in custom or how is that working behind the scenes? Rachel: Yeah, the recommendation actually is homegrown, so that's where our internal partner actually has been using all of the data from the loyalty program and understanding what customers buy, and there's propensity models that we have in place. So, somebody who has the same profile, who typically purchase X, Y, Z. "We actually build a model to say here are look alike customers and here's what we should recommend to them because it looks like that customer is similar so they may be interested in these types of products." And that's something that our internal data scientists have been able to build out for us. Stephanie: That's great. Is there anything when it comes to machine learning or the world of data that you guys have access to that you're maybe preparing for or different capabilities that you're building out right now that may be other grocers or other e-commerce stores are maybe a little bit behind on? Rachel: Yes, there definitely at the Ahold Delhaize level. I think that AI and certainly machine learning is something that everybody is going to have to be prepared to work on in the near future and be prepared to have teams working on that in the near future. And Ahold Delhaize does. Stop & Shop as a brand doesn't but at the Ahold Delhaize level we do. Stephanie: Very cool. And do they usually come up with something at the higher level and implement it within all of their stores or do they test it out and say, "Okay Stop & Shop you're going to pilot this and we'll learn from you and then we'll have our other brands try it as well," or how does that work? Rachel: That's exactly what it is, yeah exactly. And I see a big trend in experimentation and learning done with artificial intelligence, natural language processing. The first steps into conversational commerce and customer service. I think individually each of those is interesting but when you string it together it becomes really compelling and AI is now being given enough transactional information. And when combined with data science can match and predict customer behavior at a level not previously possible. So, natural language, processing and conversational tools really make it possible to help customers during the purchase journey and even more importantly in many aspects of customer service. Rachel: So, these previously somewhat academic technologies are being put in the hands of digital commerce managers and we begin to see the results. So, I fully expect that within the next couple of years what we're testing at a Ahold Delhaize level will be brought down to each of the brands. Stephanie: Yeah, it seems like there could be an interesting ... that you would get interesting results from the different brands because I can see very different consumers who are maybe shopping at Good old Giant back in Maryland. Rachel: Yes, you're absolutely right. Stephanie: How do you approach that when you're trying out different things and maybe you're like, "Oh, we see this with our customers at Stop & Shop, let's try this at another brand." And you're like womp womp that actually failed at that [inaudible] are so different. Rachel: Yeah, no it's a great call out and I say that all the time. I say what matters to somebody in the food [inaudible 00:40:18], so what matters to somebody maybe in North Carolina is different what matters to somebody in New York City. So, we have probably the toughest competitive market not only from a grocery retail perspective but even just from a media perspective and trying to ensure that our voice is heard within these difficult tough media markets. Rachel: So, for Stop & Shop really it's a little bit tricky and we do have to take a look at every single opportunity that comes our way and say, "Does this resonate with our consumer base?" Because a lot of times it won't. I think that there were a couple of examples of trying out even just a walk-up pickup service. In a city location you can walk to get your groceries handed to you. There've already been shop for you versus the traditional pickup where we load it to your car. That doesn't work everywhere obviously. [inaudible] work in the suburbs, it really only works at urban locations. That's one thing that comes to mind, there's a number of them that come to mind but each brand does have an option to opt out if it's not something that resonates within their base. Stephanie: Yeah, it makes sense. Try and implement that in New York city and all of a sudden these cars are being towed and then they're mad. Rachel: Right. Stephanie: [inaudible 00:41:48]. So, to go a little higher level I want to talk about general e-commerce themes and trends. I wanted to hear what kind of disruptions do you see coming to commerce that are not just from COVID or not just COVID because I think a lot people on here are like, "Oh, COVID's the big disruption." What else do you see happening in the world of e-commerce that's maybe coming down the pipe right now? Rachel: I mean one that's already here really is one stop shopping like Amazon. So, the retailers who adapt and constantly expand their options, shorten the supply chain, enhance customer service and develop great options for delivery and pick-up have the most success. So, I think that the model that Amazon has and Wayfair, the direct to consumer shipping is not as much as a disruption to e-commerce. That's here to stay and I think we have to learn from that and we have to adapt in order to stay competitive. And I think a lot of retailers are going to have to adapt in this new world. Everybody's going to have to be able to figure out how to provide that one stop shop because it's similar to brick & mortar shopping. You don't want to go to multiple locations on a Saturday afternoon. Rachel: It's the same thing, if you're going to pay for shipping you're going to pay for it once from one retailer or get free shipping, of course with a subscription service or promotion. And I think that's definitely here to stay. I think that convenience and the ease of finding everything in one place is that it's that big box retail mentality from back in the 80s when the big box retailers really exploded. Stephanie: Yep. Figuring out delivery and trying to compete with Amazon, man that seems very, very tough. Rachel: Very tough. Stephanie: Consumers have very high expectations now of what they want and yeah, it seems like they are quick to get upset if it's not one, two day shipping and, "Oh, it can't be here within two hours? Okay, I'm going to have to cancel the order." Rachel: Right, exactly. And "Oh, you don't have all the other things I need to? I need my face lotion and my bread. Wait, you don't have that?" Stephanie: Yeah, "Why would you not have that right next to each other?" Rachel: Right, exactly. Stephanie: Yeah, this has been awesome. Is there anything that I missed that you wanted to highlight before we jump into the lightning round? Rachel: No, I don't think so. Stephanie: Okay, cool. Well, I will pull us into the lightning round brought to you by SalesForce Commerce Cloud. This is where I'm going to ask a question and you have a minute or less to answer. Are you ready Rachel? Rachel: Oh, boy. Stephanie: All right, first one, what does the best day in the office look like for you? Rachel: Best day in the office today is at home. Stephanie: There you go. What does your virtual best day look like? Rachel: My virtual best day is when I actually have time between meetings to go get something to eat [inaudible 00:45:01]. Stephanie: That is actually a big problem I've heard from a lot of my old coworkers and talking about their whole day is now filled with meetings that maybe would've taken just a couple minutes to have a quick catch up and instead it's like, "Okay, 30 minute slots to discuss maybe one question." Rachel: Absolutely and you use your hour to the fullest extent and you're not moving around from meeting room to meeting room anymore. You're literally just sitting at your desk all day, so my best day is when I actually have a break to get up and go get something to eat because food is important to me. Stephanie: That seems like a crucial part of the day, so what's up next on your Netflix Queue. Rachel: That's a great question. I've actually blown through almost everything. Stephanie: And what was your most recent then? Rachel: I just watched the Enola Holmes. Stephanie: I'm watching that now, it's so cute. Rachel: Oh, it was excellent, I loved it, it was really great. I love Millie Bobby Brown, I think she's fantastic. Stephanie: Yeah, she was really good. Highly recommend that one. What's up next on your travel destinations when you can travel again? Rachel: Oh, gosh I want to go to Scotland so bad. Stephanie: Oh, fun. What do you want to go there for? Rachel: I want to golf. I love the countryside, just looks amazing, beautiful. I want to go hiking there. I have a lot of grand plans for Scotland and Ireland too as well. Stephanie: If you were to have a podcast what would it be about and who would your first guest be? Rachel: It would definitely be about true crime because I'm obsessed with true crime, which I know everybody is right now but I really do find it fascinating and I always have. This isn't just a fab for me, I always really liked it. Stephanie: Mm-hmm (affirmative). You started it, everyone else followed. Rachel: Yeah, exactly. I'm a trendsetter of course. Stephanie: Yes. And who would your guest be then? Will it be a serial killer? Rachel: Yeah, absolutely. I would love to interview a serial killer. I just want to know what goes on. I want to get deep for sure with a serial killer, name any one. Stephanie: All right, I mean I would listen to that. I hope they're behind bars when that happens. Rachel: Yes, yeah. I could do the interview behind bars for sure. Stephanie: There you go. And if you were to pick a virtual event right now for your team or if you already had one that you've done recently, what would it be that you think is engaging in these times? Rachel: I think there's a women's conference coming up in Boston that I would love for my team to attend. I just attended a women's leadership conference that was really amazing. It was very inspirational, even virtually I was really surprised at how well done it was and how just thought provoking the virtual conference could be. It was really fantastic. Stephanie: That sounds awesome. All right, and then the last one, what is a favorite app on your phone right now that you're loving? Rachel: This is bad but I have the CARROT app, which I don't know if you know, CARROT is the weather app. Stephanie: No, I actually don't. Rachel: It's a weather app that actually gives you a really sarcastic, snarky message every day when you open it up, so ... Stephanie: Oh, my gosh. That's great. I like that, that's really good. Well, Rachel this has been such a fun interview. Where can people find out more about you and Stop & Shop? Rachel: So, Stop&Shop.com Stop & Shop app and me, my LinkedIn profile, so Rachel Stephens, S-T-E-P-H-E-N-S. Stephanie: Awesome, well thanks so much for joining the show. Rachel: Thank you very much for having me.

50 ways Trump failed workers; Giant Foods turns deaf ear to hazard pay request; CSA launches holiday basket program. Today’s labor history: Truman seizes oil refineries, breaks strike. Today’s labor quote: John L. Lewis.@wpfwdc #1u #unions #LaborRadioPod @ufcw400Proud member of the Labor Radio Podcast Network

UFCW locals demand hazard pay negotiations at GiantGrocery store boss refuses to even open talks with workers. Today’s labor history: striking steelworkers charged with treason. Today’s labor quote: Mother Jones.@wpfwdc #1u #unions #LaborRadioPod @UFCW400 @GiantFood  Proud member of the Labor Radio Podcast Network

Gyms were closed.  Sitting around under stay-at-home orders with nothing to do but Eat and Drink!  Did you pack on The Covid "19" Pounds?  Keto, Vegetarian, Intermittent Fasting!  Do you diet or is there a safer way to lose the weight?  The chicks from Chick2Chick "chirp" with Holly Doan, a Nutritionist with Giant Foods, about how to drop those pandemic pounds safely and maintain it!   #podcast #letschirp #realtalk #womensvoices #COVID19pounds  #weightgain #healthyeating  #pandemicpounds

Transcription:Santosh Sankar  0:00  Hey folks, welcome back to The Future of Supply Chain podcast. I'm your host Santos Sankar and joining me today from Ahold Delhaize is Dan Kovar. Welcome! Dan Covert  0:50  Thanks, Santosh. Thanks for having me.Santosh Sankar  0:52   Ahold Delhaize is a big name behind a lot of everyday brands that our listeners are likely familiar with. Could you give us the overview of the business so we can level set the playing field here?Dan Covert  1:06  Yeah, definitely. It's it's very confusing even even for us to work here, so I'll try my best to explain it. So  Ahold Delhaize is a global company. So we've got a bunch of brands in Europe, Indonesia, and the US. the US parent companie is called  Ahold Delhaize USA. Of that there's five brands that we support. And then there's two service organizations. So people that eat groceries that go to grocery stores that are familiar with food on the East Coast, probably now one of our brands. So we've got in the northeast of Hannaford going south, we've got Stop and Shop which is in sort of the Boston Market, the New York Metro market, a little bit upstate New York and Connecticut, throughout that area. Further south, we've got Giant company, which is based in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, that kind of services a lot of Pennsylvania market. From there, we have Giant Foods headquartered in Landover, Maryland, and then our further south brand is Food Lion which makes up a lot of the southeast. I think in in Tennessee Santosh, you've got probably a Food Lion somewhere nearby. Santosh Sankar  2:11  Oh, yeah. Dan Covert  2:12  Those are the five brands. Then we've got two service organizations. The one that I work for is called Retail Business Services, which isn't isn't the most isn't the flashiest name, but it's got our supply chain group, finance group, IT group so anything that would be a shared service amongst those five brands sits in retail business services. And then we've got a digital eCommerce arm as well. Pea Pod Digital Labs is the seventh component of the US business. All of the confusing PDL does all of our digital eCommerce. Anything home delivery, anything on the internet, where you're interacting with brands, buying groceries online, you can all think PDL for that sale. It's a little bit complicated but hopefully that helps. Santosh Sankar  3:05  How did you get into the world of supply chain grocery logistics?Dan Covert  3:11  Yes it's not exactly what everyone thinks they want to be when they grow up. But it's been great for me so far. So I started when I went to undergrad I was a physicist, and I thought that I was going to do something with that. I did some research and avalanche dynamics and snow science thinking. It turns out people don't really want to pay you to do that. So I I saw this offer from  Ahold Delhaize at the time, which was just Hannaford food line brand. And it was first international training program that you got to work for some of the European brands and you got to come back. Get exposed to a bunch of different things. And supply chain seems like the right application for what I had studied so I have a liberal arts degree. I have a Bachelors of Arts in math and physics, which is kind of silly. But they let me use some of those skills, but also get to work with people, which is super important. So that's I think one of the one of the cool things about supply chain, especially food retail supply chain is you're, you're one of the customers of your work. So if you make a wrong forecasting decision, and you're starting to get product because of that, then you're ultimately the end consumer of that. So you might not be able to get the product you need for your family. So I really liked that component of it, just the connectivity to society, I guess. And it's super analytical, which I really like. So that's kind of how I got into it. And then I've really kind of dug my heels into supply chains. And I started six or seven years ago and went back to graduate school for supply chain and, now just like fully, fully in love with the space. It's so dynamic, especially in this time, we're seeing, you know, stuff that we've never seen before and our ability to react and play important role in the communities I think, really critical and a really cool part of this company.Santosh Sankar  5:05  And your oversight now in your current role is around supply chain R&D. So what does that entail?Dan Covert  5:12  Yeah, so it's kind of an interesting team. So it's a really cool opportunity when I came out of grad school, they're like, we're going to start a supply chain R&D team. We want you to go figure out who should be on the team and then go figure out what you guys should do. This is what you're called to kind of a weird opportunity but a great opportunity to bring in a bunch of different people. I think I have the most diverse team in the company. We got people from Russia, Kazakhstan,  India...it's it's a great team. Really, our focus was was on innovation for supply chain. So innovation, super cliche word nowadays, but it's really helping us plan for the future for what supply chain should be. We've got one of the biggest food retail networks on on the east coast. So trying to figure out what what sort of technology we should use, what our strategy is going to be, how we work with, you know, how you and I met through the startup community, how we work with people like you and through your founders camp. It's all of that it's really propelling our supply chain. The future, a lot of it recently has been supply chain analytics. So we saw that as a huge gap when we're doing a lot of our research is that we don't have really robust analytics. That's where a lot of the, you know, exciting new technology is for supply chain. And it's not necessarily physical technology, but in a new software, new way to think about all the data that we have in our supply chain. So we've been we've been really focused on that for the last six months or so. Standing up a team to support that, working with a lot of a lot of cool startups in that space as well. So that's been a super big priority, but I think it's also really important for my team to stay connected to people like you also to any new technology happening in supply chain. Because there's there's so much innovation happening right now. And it's what we think is our is our mission and in this company is to bring that to our company.Santosh Sankar  7:07  Sure. And I'm gonna come back to that theme around innovation and startup engagement. But we'd love to kind of do a grocery logistics one on one. So people understand what we're dealing with here. A lot of folks who have been in our audience and our listener base, to your point, are consumers of the grocery supply chain. They've likely faced kind of stock outs on shelves or longer lead times when they want essential products. But stepping back, how is the grocery supply chain structured at a high level? What should people know about the way food is moved?Dan Covert  7:45  Yeah, so it's definitely one of the most interesting supply chains and I think anyone that works in supply chain thinks, you know, a widget is a widget and supply chain fundamentals are kind of the same. When your widgets expire and have to be thrown out after two or three days. It's a little different from, you know how you deal with that. So it's structured kind of like any major supply chain. We work directly with manufacturers, we have many different distribution centers segregated by temperature state, and by movement class. So we might have the need to pick a facility for super slow movers, whereas you might have fast moving facilities for super high velocity products. So, really fundamental on that side. We've got many different distribution centers that deliver directly to our stores. We also work with a lot of local suppliers, and manufacturers to deliver directly to our stores. So many big food suppliers like beer and soda and chips are all delivered DSD, direct store delivery, to our stores. But then we also work with a lot of local produce suppliers and farmers to get fresher product to our stores. It's obviously more efficient to go right from a farm to a store then, you know cross docking through a distribution center or even slotting into distribution center. One thing that we do some of that, to all those USA brands is vertical integration. So we've got a couple different vertical integration plants. We have one meat processing facility in Pennsylvania and really what that does is brings in sides of beef and cuts into steaks and shipped out to stores. There are a lot more efficient that way than having a butcher in every store. So whenever we're vertically integrated you see a huge growth in that that category in store. So trying to deliver different options for customers and kind of standardize across the company. So it's really a fascinating spot changes because of that perishability and the different sort of order cycle times are really quick. If people work in fashion retail or something like that you're planning like six months to year horizons. Whereas we're planning, you know, what's going to be on sale next week? How about how do we get this product into our stores as quickly as possible? It's it's definitely dynamic, very fast paced, which is exciting, especially in these times. Santosh Sankar  10:25  And I recall in your prior role, you're involved with demand planning. And I'd be curious, like, how is demand planning and equally supply planning conducted in the grocery world?Dan Covert  10:37  Yeah, so it's similar to a lot of a lot of industries. We we plan for promotions. And the thing is that if you're working in fashion, you might have a promotion a few times a year for holidays. We're promoting different products every week. So we're planning for exactly what product is going to be on promotion. How big of a display or store is going to build. How much inventory did I need to support that much inventory. They already have one or alternative channels to buy that product, especially in fresh, where you, you might have a tier one supplier and that supplier might have a bad crop, you might have to go to another, another supplier to the spot market, there's a lot of that sort of demand shifting that I think is pretty dynamic, and definitely can be a challenge. So I think from a planning perspective, you know, we generally plan on a two to four week horizon for our promotions to make sure that we have the right product in stock prior to promotions, work really closely with kind of the retail merchandising teams so that we understand their merchandising strategy. So that if they're going to build a display, or something like that, that we have the right amount of product, you also work really closely with suppliers, especially if it's private label to make sure that you know they're manufacturing the amount of product that we're going to need. So it's really in the food, retail space or in our space you kind of in the middle there where we're supporting ourselves. Stores, because that's where the customers are, we've got to make sure that they have enough product. But we also have to look at the manufacturers to make sure that if it's fresh that the crop is good enough that we can get what we need for a promotion. And if it's a private label product, that they're manufacturing, sufficient quantities that we can get what we need for our stores. So definitely a juggling game. One of the other things too, is just the amount of items that you have. It's so much different than a lot of other industries in that we might have 50,000 or 60,000 SKUs in store.Santosh Sankar  12:29  Wow.Dan Covert  12:32  You can't you can't individually manage every store item combination, there's probably something like 50 or 60 million store item combinations if you take all of our stores times all of our items. So you rely a lot on on algorithms to do this effectively. And then you focus on you know those those key promotions, those critical items, but then you rely a lot of math and to make sure that you have the right inventory in the plant right for for the rest of the items.Santosh Sankar  13:00  Sure. And you know, I'd be a bit curious like, how does one account for the sudden demand spikes that we've experienced in the last month like around the holidays? You can you get planned for but how do you deal with an event that you just weren't expecting?Dan Covert  13:18  Yeah, it's it's a challenge for sure. We've got a great team here. And I think people have done a great job of responding. But, to your point when you're going into Christmas, you know, Christmas is coming on the 25th. Every year, you know what products people are going to buy. There wasn't a sort of 2019 global pandemic SNMP session to say no, when the global pandemic hits this year, this is what we need to go have. It was just oh, wow, we're out of toilet paper flour, rice. People are buying on it that how do we quickly respond? So from a supply chain perspective, everybody always wants to be proactive versus reactive, but certainly in this, we saw some of the writing on the wall and tried to get as much inventory on critical items as we could, but then it hit really suddenly. And now your sales drop dramatically and it's tough to recover. So I think some of the some of the things that I do here is like the strong partnerships with our suppliers are, are really critical here. One of the big dynamics that we're seeing right now is to be more efficient manufacturers are scaling down production on the amount that's used. So there's a lot of rationalization going on in the CPG world where they might have made, you know, 1000 SKUs for us previously, and now they might be making 100. So just so their lines can be more efficient. They don't have to switch over their lines, their assortment is, is kind of much narrower, but they're able to produce a lot more of those fast selling items. So that I think from a supply chain planning perspective becomes a really interesting dynamic is that your shelf when you know you look at a shelf of ketchup, you might have 100 choices. Now he might only have 10 choices and how do we correspondingly work with our retailers to say, we need to change the merchandising in our store so they're not empty because you're only getting, you know, six types of ketchup for the next five months. But it's that's kind of the flavor of it right now. Santosh Sankar  15:17  Sure. Dan Covert  15:18  So really being able to work buyers to understand what they're going to make, try to get those strong partnerships so that they're efficient on production. We're getting our trucks there as soon as the product is ready. We're getting into our stores as quickly as possible. And really working with our merchants with a lot of our planning teams on now, what's continuing to sell. How can we start to build inventory on those products? Because what we see is, you know, shelves might be empty, but it's not like this products aren't, aren't coming. They're just selling at, you know, four or five x what they normally sell at. So the when the demand is happening, I think there's there's sort of an interesting shift. That I think a lot of people are experiencing is you want to get to the store first thing in the morning, right when that truck arrives, get toilet paper, flour and beans and all those things that people want so badly right now because they might be gone by day. So sort of trying to tailor delivery schedules to make sure that people get what they want. It's it's a wild time, I think the team has done a super good job responding to it trying to find alternative ways to get a product when some of our key suppliers or you know, if they have an outbreak at one of their, their plants, how can you switch alternative channels quickly? That's that's certainly a tactic that we've tried to deploy as much as possible. But yeah, I think that the partnerships are like in anything in supply chain are really critical. So both with the retailers, with the brands that we're supporting and with the manufacturers to make sure that we were working together to help them out as well.Santosh Sankar  16:54  Sure just listening to you articulate the nature of the supply side. I kind of forgot that there's this dynamic nature to produce and meats and perishable products where you just might not have the yield you expect versus the demand forecast and that adds a different level of complexity. Related to that, how does food safety play into this? I'd be remiss you know, as we're giving a primer on grocery logistics and food logistics. You know, where does food safety play into it? is it relevant throughout how how should people think about it and walk away educated about it?Dan Covert  17:35  Sure. I'm know by no means an expert in safety, but I'll try to try to give you my my thoughts on this. Of course, it's it's one of the most critical obligations as a retailer for selling food to people to bring home to their familie. It better, be safe, better be fresh, better be something that that they feel confident in feeding to their family. So yeah, absolutely top of mind for us in all of our products. Every thing from private label too, if it's a big CPG. If it's produce, if it's local, it's shipping from the west coast, it's critical to make sure that everything that we're shipping, we have top competence and the safety of that product. So to get sort of tactical on that, and there's tons of checks that we do, you know, inbound product at our distribution centers, making sure that the product is coming in correct if it's not meeting our specifications, and it's not something that we feel good selling to our customers, then we can reject the trucker or anything like that. So, you know, we check diligently when product comes into our warehouse check diligently when it comes into our store, people in the stores especially in fresher, going around multiple times a day making sure that the product on the shelf is still at the right temperature that the produce isn't bruised and still something that we feel feel competent. Selling to our customers a fresh product, especially in grocery stores is really the differentiator like you can buy Cheerios or candy the same at any store. But if we take a lot of pride and all of our, all the brands that retail business services supports, we take a ton of pride in making sure that, you know, they have the best best quality impression that we're really comfortable selling that to our customers. So I think kind of pivoting this a little bit into sort of the startup world and in emerging technology, there's a huge opportunity there. With fresh technology, you know, we've looked at a lot of different ways to make sure that you know, product is we can track the temperature of product isn't when it's coming all the way across the country and then use predictive analytics to say, you know, this product went above temperature for this amount of time, you either need to reroute that truck or you need to automatically reject the load. So there's a ton of, I think opportunity there in the startup space to improve, to use technology to make or you can say for its traceability, if it's, you know, getting more information on humidity and shock and temperature, time out of tempo all those things are really important so this is this is something that we spend a ton of time on. I've got someone on my team that's specifically focused on fresh supply chain strategy and innovation in that space so it's very much a top priority for our supply chain and for all the brands that we support to make sure that we got the best product for our customers.Santosh Sankar  20:23  And you know, I'd be curious you know if from your vantage point how our priority shifted from you know, Gen One to sitting here today on the podcast. Have the last several months of turbulence changed your priorities are you still pretty much kind of business as usual as it was set out to be at the start of the year?Dan Covert  20:45  I would say it's a little bit better. So I think when you when you look at the food retail supply chain, you're you're constantly balancing costs and services grocery is inherently very low margin. So you're trying to reduce your cost as much as possible. Still delivering the highest service you can to your customers. And that's the classic supply chain trade off of customer service. Throughout the pandemic, we've focused very heavily on service. Maybe sometimes being willing to pay more for product because we can provide greater service.I think more critical than ever was the need for for grocery stores and the role that they play in the community. Like, I've worked in this for this company for six or seven years. And I've never been in a time where like, well, I actually feel like we're really impacting the community with what we're doing. People are dependent on us to get the products. So I would say from a priority perspective, our priority has always been serving our customer and getting them the right products that they need. I think more than ever, we're focused on getting customers the product, keeping our pipelines full, making sure that you know, we don't we don't just have products today, but we have it tomorrow. And next week, and that you can count on all of our brands to be to have the product that that every customer needs. So I would say we've really focused on on that. We set out every year with a bunch of key strategic priorities that were, that we're going after. We're still focusing on those, but it's been for the last two or three months, kind of all hands on deck, making sure that we're doing everything we can to, to get product to the customer. So not another huge change in that regard. It's just really a heightened effort. You might scale back on some of the you might focus less on what's the greatest emerging technology, my team has pivoted a little bit from that sort of pie in the sky three year plan to what do we need to be doing right now? What analytics can we do to support our response, you know, in this month, so a little more operational and more tactical, maybe a little bit less long term strategic but ultimately trying to find the best ways to service our customers right now.Santosh Sankar  22:59  As you look through the supply chain like are there pressures being born on certain constituents or certain parts of the supply chain?Dan Covert  23:09  Yeah, I think so. So one of one of the big pressures is pressures on vendors, are they are they managing their inventory fairly? You know, when there's a big supply limitation on a lot of this, and I'm a big CPG, I've got to decide where I ship my products. So we're seeing definitely pressure on vendors to make sure that inventory is allocated correctly. There's one of the one of the biggest pressures and kind of the static pressure is when, you know, you'd see the pandemic hit some of our facilities and our association that is really, really hard to really hard to manage. They're not directly on on those lines, but it can be a huge challenge. If you've got a distribution center that gets many positive outbreaks, then that can be really challenging. So that's happening. To suppliers to, to pretty much every retailer, I mean, everyone's being impacted by this. And it's trying to figure out what what you can do how you can keep supporting our associates, like we talked about, you know, our priorities are to make sure our associates are healthy. Making sure that we're servicing our community properly. So I think we are seeing a lot of pressure on labor, being able to get people to feel safe, and you know, going outside like the, the real here then so that people in the grocery stores that are working every day, and it's easy for us to say, you know, this isn't a big deal. We're all working from home, but there's a huge amount of people, you know, we have thousands of associates every day, they're showing up to work, ticking boxes, making sure that that all of our customers are getting stores or getting food and then we have, you know, thousands of people in stores every day that are that are doing the same thing. If I was in that role, I would feel a lot of pressure, and I think that those people have absolutely risen to the occasion. We're super proud as a company of those associates because they're really making the difference.Santosh Sankar  25:08  Yeah, absolutely. hunkering down on the front lines. Yeah. So I'm gonna go back to a string of thoughts we had during the earlier part of our conversation around innovation. And I would specifically be curious about what your thoughts are around automation. So robotics, specifically, in terms of food and grocery logistics. Where's that going?Dan Covert  25:34  Yeah. So I think there's, there's huge opportunities there. One of the one of the things that, that we've been looking at is the automation is so expensive, and it takes so much time that you know, the full scale automation, the ASRS solution that people are thinking about, and it takes so much time and such a big capital investment, and there's a lot of there's so much work to be done in this case. So not saying that  there's obviously a ton of value in that one. One thing that my team has been working on that we're really excited about is sort of this, you know, flexible enhancement to improve a worker's productivity. Not to improve their productivity rather, but to just improve the working conditions. So we've been working with this company develops these suits that helps our our selectors. It reduces the fatigue on the selection process. Imagine if you're picking 50 pound cases, beef, eight hours every day, five days a week, sometimes longer than that. The amount of fatigue that that puts on your body is it's really taxing. That's kind of one of the projects that we're most excited about this for this year, because it's like automation often gets a stigma of like, you're going to replace the workers. And I think that what's so cool about this is now we're not we're not doing that we're actually making, we're allowing you to continue to do the same job but we're just improving the conditions that you're working in. Making it easier for you to do the same work. So I think that that's a really cool space. Something that we're really excited about is sort of this flexible or co-automation. I guess that's the term that people use to talk about that sort of thing. I think there's a huge opportunity there, because a lot of the work that still done in warehouses is you know, you need to be able to be flexible. And when you have to ramp up demand to 150% of normal, the automated solution can be sort of limited at that you can only get so much capacity out of that. So I think there's always going to be sort of a collaboration here where there's some products definitely make sense to automate where it can be really tedious and working in a freezer all days is very difficult. And people don't often want to do that. But in other areas, it's, you know, when you can rank on capacity really efficiently. There's there's a huge opportunity there. So I think it's kind of kind of a serpentine answer to your question, but I think I think there's a huge opportunity and it's not just sort of a replacement strategy. It's more of a collaboration strategy, which I think we're starting to see some really good benefits from this year.Santosh Sankar  28:07  Do you think the ROI around automation actually improves? As we've seen,  the fragility that having a lot of people in distribution sites brings around having to quit facilities with added safety and health precaution? Do you think that might actually bring the ROI story to a place where people say, yeah, let's accelerate this?Dan Covert  28:36  I think I think you could definitely make that case that it's becoming, you're seeing a lot of the impact. Now, as I was making the point earlier, that if you have a positive outbreak in your supply chain and facilities, especially then it could really, really cripple that. So I think that that's probably a competitive business case that people didn't really think about two years ago. And I think, yeah, the recent the recent A prevalence of that is really would be very positive for a business case is just sort of as a contingency. There's a lot of a lot of resilience that you can have with an automated facility. But, yeah, I mean, I think it's tough. Because we really value the people in our facilities. And I think that they're kind of critical to our business. So automation can often get the wrong impression, or I don't want to go too far down on that. I think that there's a huge opportunity to want to improve our workers well-being in the facilities. But yeah, I think that that could go in conjunction with the well being conversation with that. Yeah. If you're feeling unsafe being in a facility, then there's alternative solutions for that. Santosh Sankar  29:46  Yeah. We have one of our portfolio founders Eric Nieves at Plus One robotics says, robots work but people rule because there's a hell of a lot of things that humans will just always be better. So we need to augment our people. Out of curiosity, how do you balance internal R&D and then you know, external efforts such as you know, Dynamo's founders can find for participating in various ecosystem events.Dan Covert  30:14  It's an interesting balance, because what you want to do is think the external collaborations are super important, because then you're aware of what's going on in the industry. But at the same time, the the internal is really important because you want to be solving the right problem. Everyone loves like shiny objects, like autonomous vehicles and drones. And that sort of stuff, doesn't really solve that many problems that we have right now. They don't solve critical problems with the current state of the technology. So I think what my team tries to do is spend at least 20% of our week on the external side, understanding what's happening in the ecosystem, so we've got a good partnership with the incubator in Cambridge, Massachusetts that we work with quite a bit globally. Got the partnership with you, Dynamo and Founder's camp, we've been to a few times. So I think that that's really important having a pulse to what people are doing in adjacent industries, how the supply chain, startup space is changing. I think that's very important. But then it's also making sure that we're solving the right problems. So spending a lot of time with the operations teams in our company and understanding what problems they're trying to solve, so that we can get sort of imply that external research to the right, sort of problems internally.Santosh Sankar  31:29  Sure, sure. And for the entrepreneurs in our audience, is there an area of grocery food or just broadly in supply chain that you think is being overlooked? Or people are just unaware of and they should be building in that category? Dan Covert  31:49  Yeah, I think there's, I think the the almost almost question is looking at, you know, where there is a huge amount of startup activity taking taking place. Then spending time and interest to store and understanding what's really going on. So I think there's there's a ton of work being done ton of companies that are kind of solving the Uber freight type problem. You know, matching carriers and shippers, I think that that's, that's a space that's really heavily populated right now with a lot of a lot of companies doing doing really great stuff. I think really, on the product side is super interesting. Like, especially in the fresh product side, I think that that is going to become increasingly important for us it is kind of one of our one of the most critical parts of the food retail space. But how can we how can we get fresher product to our customers, it's really one of the questions that we think about all the time. So there's a ton of work being done on leafy greens here, like, especially on the East Coast, growing products inside. Growing leafy greens closer to the customer, instead of shipping them from one Valley in California. There's a huge opportunity there, but that's really the only space that we're seeing a lot of that happening. So anything that can shorten the supply chain, I think is very interesting. I think there's a cool opportunity there. Obviously, it's a very capital intensive business. The applications of analytics are obviously endless. And I think that we're spending a lot more time my team especially. Yeah, we have so much information or supply chain. How do we make sense of that? I think that that's a pretty popular space right now as well. I think one of the things that this isn't so much an opportunity, but it's just a way to work with big companies like ours, that we found to be very effective is the startups that we've been able to get stuff done with, like a simple product that people can see that doesn't necessarily involve having an IP integration team at all. I think a lot of the, you know, stuff more on the software side. It's obviously what people are developing. Now that can be really difficult to get a pilot done quickly with a large organization. The stuff that we've had the most success with, they're just like, hey, we've got this way to help pickers. more effectively, it looks like this, I've got it in my hand doesn't take it, you can go plug it into your DC right now give it to your workers help them work more efficiently, stuff like that. kind of the point I was making earlier around automation, where we're working with a company that to help make picking less fatiguing, and we're not going to worry, but less stressful enter on our pickers. So this is something that's been super impactful because we can just say, "Great. Let's go try it in our in our warehouse next week." It's just so easy to do stuff like that, versus Hey, I've got this cool algorithm that has this fancy UI. I need these 50 different streaming data sources. Can I work with your IT team?" And yeah, in three years maybe. So I think finding that that sort of area where it's really quick to test something that you don't have this, you know, this thinking about all the people that would have to be involved for a pilot to be successful is I think sort of the the mark of Are you going to have good traction with a big organization? The smaller the amount of people that have to be involved to get it off the ground, but the better?Santosh Sankar  35:08  Yeah, no, absolutely. Absolutely. I think those are great insights. Dan. We've had a awesome episode. I think folks who dial in and listen to this are surely going to understand how things get to their store shelves and on their kitchen table a lot clearer. But with that, hopefully can host you here in Chattanooga. I don't know if it'll be this year, but hopefully in the near future, nonetheless. Appreciate it. Cheers. Dan Covert  35:39  Wonderful. Thanks so much. Yeah. Great. Great to catch up.Transcribed by https://otter.ai

Ever wonder what should go on your plate? What basic nutrition is? How to grocery shop? Listen in as Ali talks with a Giant Foods registered dietitian,  Jillian Griffith, to answer the above questions and more!!

Omni Talk recaps the week's retail news including Shoptalk's retail education certificate, a WW and Kohls pilot, Giant Foods new stores and more.

The first Lunch Agenda series, Groceries for All, explores why, in our nation’s capital, good food still can’t be taken for granted. On Saturday October 14th, hundreds of DC residents walked to downtown Anacostia from the nearest grocery store– a Giant Foods over 2 miles away– ending at a rally calling for city investment in access to healthy food for every resident. In part 1 of the series, Kiko interviews Dominique Hazzard of DC Greens, who planned the march.

Mark Berey, CEO turned white-collar crime detective, talks candidly about making a contrarian decision to turn in his country club membership for a slot in the police academy after his attempt at retirement. Growing up with both parents running separate, successful businesses, he was infused at an early age with an entrepreneurial mentality and an inquisitiveness that landed him roles as CEO and CFO at Giant Foods, Discovery Communications, and Sutton Place Gourmet.  When advising young people looking to grow and succeed, Mark's advice is to work hard and keep your objectives in mind. "I had a goal and if it meant taking orders from people that I know a year or two later might be reporting to me, I could do that." Industrious and pragmatic, Mark understands the meaning of true success, changing industries to suit his intellectual interests and knowing when to say when. Speaking about former colleagues, he says, "the ones who are least happy are the ones that are chasing a bar that keeps rising". Having made enough money to be financially secure, Mark changed course later in life by becoming a detective investigating financial and economic crimes. Mark's journey of realistic authenticity and clear-headed curiosity, will have you excited about the possibilities of your next chapter.